A Second Look at Rubrics: My Experience

I used rubrics in my classes foremost because in 2002 when I was having my Master's degree in Science Education that was the buzz word. I was not intelligent enough to investigate the downside of them until lately when I realized the need to address some silent issues about this assessment procedure. Silent because most teachers are using templates prepared by committees without considering factors that are teacher, student or classroom related.
In my literature reviews, (which I failed to include in my final manuscript because disclosing problems and limitations of rubrics might weaken my study) there were some issues raised about the use of rubrics in science education. First was the validity and reliability of the rubrics; time issue, constructing one takes a longer time; and for the Filipino teacher, the transmutation issue.

Those were indeed some of the many problems I faced when I first employed rubrics in my class. But I got over them.

In order for the construction of rubrics not to consume much time, all I did was to involve my students in making rubrics. For example, in the preparation of a rubric for oral report, I asked them: "What are the characteristics of an excellent report?" I let them define quality, believing that with their various exposures in several teachers since in the elementary, they knew what a good and bad report is. From their answers, we shall group similar characteristics and name it anew. Then I would say:"Arrange these characteristics in the order of importance." I was also instructing them to allot a percentage in each characteristic such that the total would be 100% and such that when you decide for the total points of such an activity, you are just going to multiply it with the corresponding percentage per indicator of performance.

Rubric for an Oral Report

In addressing the validity issue, have the instrument face validated by your co-teachers using the following criteria:

1. It relates to the outcome being measured.
2. It covers important dimensions of student performance.
3. Expected quality reflects current conceptions of excellence in the field.
4. The indicators of student performance are well defined.
5. There is a basis for assigning scores in each scale point.
6. It can be used consistently by different scorers.
7. It can be understood by the students.
8. It can be applied to a variety of tasks.
9. It is fair and free from bias.
10. It is useful, feasible, manageable and practical.

Reliability issue can be addressed by taking the inter-rater's reliability. This is the correlation coefficient between two raters of the same work.

In addressing the transmutation issue (which is the most common problems among Filipino teachers who were confused how letter grades like A, B, C or D, or descriptive ratings like novice, developing or expert, or point grades like 1, 2, and 3 be converted into a percent grade which the Philippine public education system follows). In my case, I simplified it to summing up the scores and then multiply it by 50 then divide it by total possible score plus 50. Such that the result would be Score x 2.5 + 50. Notice that in my rubrics, I only showed the characteristics of a high quality work. But how about those non-quality works. In using the rubrics I developed a continuum scale like the one below.

<------------------------------i----------------------------->

Low..........................Average........................High

Users of the rubrics must be informed of this continuum scale. Since scale values vary from one performance indicator to another, this scale will be the guide. The middle value in the scale means passing. There is a little subjectivity in here but the numerical scale values are reduced into few options as possible to minimize subjectivity.

Include peer assessment in grading the oral report. In my case, group leaders were using the above rubrics in grading the report. Their collective ratings form 40% of the grade, mine comprised the 60%. I have some doubt on self-assessment because when I tried it, students were overrating themselves.

Rubrics are there but as educators we are free to manipulate, revise, redesign them to address issues about their use. In my experience for example, I have made rubrics preparation easy and addressed the transmutation of scores soundly. All I needed was to make noise in my class in encouraging students to perform at a higher level indicated in the rubrics. We use rubrics so that students will have a guide to know what quality performance is and that they would be working towards it, why need to give them characteristic of a POOR performance then?